These are among the hanges looming this academic year at public schools, including Onslow County’s, after new state and federal regulations are imposed.

The complexities of those changes were discussed during Onslow County Board of Education’s special meeting at the Family Resource Center in Jacksonville on Wednesday.

On Aug. 7, Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law the state’s $21.1 billion budget, which he called a “pragmatic and thoughtful approach to managing taxpayer dollars,” according to a release by the governor’s office.

That budget spurred a drastically different formula for teacher and administrator pay.

That new formula, or pay schedule, includes a 7-percent average raise for teachers, but new salary calculations do not guarantee that exact amount more will be paid to teachers or instructional support staff this year.

“It can vary widely depending on where they are on the schedule,” Onslow County Schools Chief Financial Officer Jeff Hollamon told the board. “The teachers and instructional support personnel certified state salary schedule looks very different this year than it has in past years. They’ve taken what has been a 30-plus-step series … and collapsed it down basically to about six bands of steps. That’s one part of the (schedule).”

The shift also groups longevity pay — which had been paid separately — into base salary, he said.

“It is important to note that none of these employees will receive a reduction in pay …,” Hollamon added. “They will either get the better of what is on the new salary schedule or if what they made last year … plus their longevity — if that amount is higher, then they will receive that instead and that will be their new certified rate.”

In addition, principals and assistant principals are slated to earn a 2-percent-average pay raise, Hollamon said.

Those also will vary.

This year is the first time that the principals’ and assistant principals’ base pay rates are not tied to teacher pay rates, he said.

In years when teachers receive raises, Hollamon said “Obviously, you would think that the person who is in charge of the entire school and supervision of teachers would see some benefit for those they are supervising. That is no longer the case.”

Another complication: Assistant principals hired after July 1, 2009, are eligible to earn the better of where they fall on the assistant-principal schedule or teacher schedule, Hollamon said.

“The assistant-principal scale does not rate with where the person could be paid,” Hollamon said. “They could be paid on a teaching scale. Now, that doesn’t help our more seasoned assistant principals. I don’t know if we have any that fall in that category.”

Page 2 of 2 - Pay bonuses were authorized for teachers who receive “harmless” pay, he said. Those teachers will reap a $1,000 pay bonus in the form of $100 over 10 pay periods. And other school employees who receive no pay raise may qualify for an $809 bonus, also divided in monthly pay periods.

“I will note that that is different than what state employees receive,” Hollamon said. “State employees will be receiving $1,000.”

In addition, permanent, hourly paid school employees — such as bus drivers, bus monitors, child nutrition assistants and dual employees — are slated to earn an annual bonus of $500.

Substitute teachers also will increase pay raises this year, said Associate Superintendent Barry Collins during the meeting.

Long-term substitutes, who are scheduled to work at least four weeks, will earn $10 more per day than last year. Long-term substitutes will earn $110, according to the summary.

In addition, the Affordable Care Act’s new rules this year will cause the school to cap the number of monthly workdays by substitute teachers once allowed to work roughly 20 days. This year, substitute teachers cannot work more than roughly 13 days to avoid additional costs the school system would owe “if we had a lot of those,” he added.

“We had some discussion about the Affordable Care Act and how that would impact us,” Collins said. “This is one of those impacts.”

It will affect five to 10 percent of substitute teachers at Onslow County schools, he added.

Most do not work more than the maximum days now allowed, Collins said.

Last year, the school system had 150 new hires who were substitute teachers, according to an executive summary that Collins distributed during the meeting that offers a snapshot of personnel data from last fiscal year.

Last year, the system employed 277 active substitute teachers, according to the summary.

As with the other rule changes, the exact implications of the new rules would take time to determine.

“Now, obviously we’re going to have some exceptions to that rule when we have long-term situation,” Collins said.

In cases, such payment could be necessary and, in those cases, “we’re going to go ahead and incur those costs,” he added.